Specified

How to spell specified

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce specified

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does specified mean?

1. verbStated or identified something clearly and in exact detail.

Specified in a sentence

• The contract specified a delivery date of the first of March.

• The recipe specified exactly how much flour to use.

Where does specified come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past form of 'specify', which English took from the Old French specifier in the 1300s, itself drawn from the Late Latin specificare, meaning 'to name a kind' or 'to set out in detail'. That Latin verb was built from species, meaning 'a kind, sort, or appearance', combined with facere, 'to make', so the literal idea was to make something into a distinct kind by naming it precisely. The same species root sits inside everyday relatives such as 'special', 'species', and 'specific', all carrying the notion of a particular type marked out from the rest. Over time 'specify' settled into its modern sense of stating exactly what is required or intended, and the -fied ending follows the regular pattern where verbs in -fy drop the y and add -ied. The spelling trap is the unstressed middle vowel and the single c, which writers can be tempted to double or to replace with an s.

How the word is built

• speci- (from Latin species: kind, sort)
• -fy (from facere: to make)
• -ed (past tense/participle suffix)